Yellow chert with cinnamon swirls,
Flint and jade serpentine
Put a shine on my
Pick-axe
When I dug your grave today.
There was no other place,
For this is your rise,
Your swell
Beneath a young valley oak
With the ranch resting
In the lap of these hills.
You came here to see the new barley
And Penny's tomatoes -
Plump as babies' bottoms -
And grandbabies grown,
Rolling downhill through lupine,
Through scarlet owl clover.
To thump against the garden fence,
Making the tomatoes dance.
If souls have duty
Beyond death,
Then yours
Is here.

© by Robert Walton.
Used with the author's permission.